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Thursday, September 24, 2015

Homemade Applesauce (with Steam Canning Instructions)

In my mind, fall screams apples! I love that I can get apples for very cheap in the fall, especially seconds. While they may not be great for slicing and eating, they make good applesauce!

Making applesauce is a very simple process, made even simpler in the last year with the purchase of a saucemaker. If you plan to make applesauce on a regular basis, I highly recommend it!!

I can applesauce in a steam canner. Not enough research has been done on the steam canner for the USDA to say that steam canning is 100% safe; however, we have chosen to use this method as it requires less water and we have never had any problems with the canning method. If you are uncomfortable with steam canning or do not have a steam canner, you can easily find the method for water bath canning applesauce (which I have also done in the past).

First, apples should be cut and lightly boiled - just until soft. Place them in the bowl of the sauce maker and begin turning the handle.

Applesauce will begin pouring out into your bowl and the scrap will move into it's own bowl.

All of those apples made this beautiful applesauce....

And just this little bit of scrap! Unlike when I would peel and cut apples on my own, the only scrap using the sauce maker is seeds and skin. All of the juice and flesh is in the applesauce!!

Add 6-8 cups water to your steam canner, set the burner to hot, and begin warming your water.

I heat my applesauce in a crockpot and warm my jars in the oven. Remove jars from the oven one at a time, fill them with the warm applesauce, wipe the rim, put on the lid and ring, and place in the steam canner.

Follow the directions for your canner for processing the applesauce. My canner has you add 6 cups of water to the pot, add your jars, and process for 20 minutes after the water is fully heated (steam should come out of the hole in an 8 inch stream when it's heated through).

After you are done processing, remove the jars and allow to cool on some stacked towels. Lids should pop sealed and those jars once cool can be stored with rings removed. Any jars that do not seal should be put in the fridge and eaten in the next few days!